


And she survived

by Keenir



Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Post-Movie(s), only the tiniest bit AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the people Superman digs from the rubble of Metropolis, is someone he is not sure what to do with.</p><p>For with Faora-Ul, there is no easy answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Superman comes across her when he was assisting with the recovery of survivors from the ruins of those parts of Metropolis which had been subject to the World Engine, him and Zod, or both.

He had no idea how she had survived the collision, the formation of a Phantom Zone pocket, or any of the rest of it.

And yet clearly she had.

Clark stilled as he looked at the concrete block pinning down her unconscious form.

'I am Sub-Commander Faora-Ul,' she had told him so recently and feeling so long ago

 _What do I do now?_ Clark wondered. _Hand her over so people can prosecute her for so much of Metropolis' destruction? Condemning her to a life behind bars...for however long that lasts._

And he could well imagine all the possible things that would be done...or attempted. The Sub-Commander was one of the people who had torn apart Metropolis, true, but she was also one of the only two survivors of Krypton with all its wealth of knowledge and technology _or so they assume._ And would some see her as insurance, perhaps holding her in isolation and letting Clark speak to her only when he did that country a favor? Or trying to build a species survival plan?

Concrete crunched to gravel dust underfoot.

As he lifted the block and moved it somewhere it wasn't of danger to anyone, _Or do I hide her away? Granted she's a bit big to fit under my porch. But seriously, where do I take her that she won't be found - and how long til she tries to kill me for it, if she does try? Where do you put a Kryptonian?_

A grim expression near enough to a smile on his face. "Well, as it happens, that's one thing I _do_ know."


	2. Faora's first week with Martha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark Kent knows exactly two people who survived raising a Kryptonian. So he goes to one for help.

**Day One:**

"So, what are you going to do, when you aren't saving the world? Have you given any thought to that?" Martha asked Clark the evening he came home from the city and set _that woman_ down on the one good sofa left. "If its too soon, then -"

Clark held up a hand, both to ask her to calm down, and to ask for the next plate for him to wipe clean. "I have. I.."

Martha didn't doubt that her Clark had given it a great deal of thought - _He always did, for everything he did._ But there was another question which was weighing on her just as much. A question which became all the more important, now that Clark had given himself the task of protecting the Earth, and taking on a civilian job.

But Clark held up one finger, as if he could read her mind and wanted her to wait a moment, and he said "You know, if you're going to sneak away without a goodbye, its considered polite to at least say thank you."

Martha watched as that Kryptonian woman walked in perfect silence into sight at the entrance to the kitchen. "You were aware," she said to Clark, paying Martha no mind that she could see.

"Even if you controlled your breathing and your heartbeat perfectly when you were awake, there was a moment where you didn't have control - the second you woke up in." _Woke up and realized you weren't dead. That'd shock anyone, I imagine._ "So either you had an irregular heartbeat, or you were awake," Clark said. "And the first one didn't seem like something that'd be bred into soldiers."

"You would be surprised," Faora says.

"Can you just...please sit back down. We'll be out in a minute," and she left back the way she'd come.

"Clark..." Martha said.

Holding her arms, Clark said, "Mom, if there's anyone who knows the dangers involved, its you. You raised me, and I turned out pretty okay."

"More than that."

"There, see?" as if that proved his point for him. "I won't let her hurt you. Its just that, there's only a handful of other options, and..." and wouldn't or couldn't let himself say anything further on that.

Clark had taken her sidearm, her gauntlet and suit of armor, as well as anything which could have been used as a weapon. All that was left to Faora was the suit which covered her body and bore the UL emblem from shoulder to shoulder where Clark's had the EL emblem.

"Okay," Martha said, letting him walk beside her as they joined Faora in the sitting room or what was left of it now that the truck had been hauled away.

"You heard that," Clark said to Faora, as much question as statement.

"I heard," Faora confirmed.

"You're going to be staying here. With my mother. She's going to keep an eye on you, and help you adjust to living on Earth."

"As she taught you, she will teach me?"

"That's right," Martha said.

"Let us begin."

"Actually, "I'm going to lay down some ground rules before we go any further," Clark says. "Number one, _do not harm_ my mother. Nor, through inaction, allow harm to come to her. You understand so far?"

"I comprehend."

"You'll comply?"

She looked at him as though he were an idiot.

"Yes or no?" Clark asked. "Because there are a couple of places I could drop you off, that are very inhospitable."

The look didn't go away, but "I shall adapt to this place," Faora said grudgingly.

"Good, because that's actually what the second rule's about..."

**~~**  
 **Day Two:**

"I do not see the purpose of this," Faora said as Martha measured her arm, then verrry loosely around the bust to get an idea of which size neighborhood to look in. Judging by the look in the younger woman's eyes, Martha had a feeling that, if her son hadn't extracted that Do No Harm promise, that Momma Kent's lifespan would be measured in fractions of a second.

"You want to be able to go outside, don't you?" Martha asked her.

"I would not be against the notion."

"As I told you before, I'm taking your measurements so I can get you some new clothes."

"My suit fits and will always fit."

_That's handy._ "Well, around here, if you're dressed in our kind of clothes, you don't get a second look - well, you would, because you're not unattractive. But there wouldn't be panic or calls for the army to come out here."

"My suit would," Faora said, and Martha wasn't sure if it was a question or a comment.

And, in case it helped distract Faora from the measurings, Martha asked her, "So, Clark tells me you're a soldier," and was pretty sure that the look on the girl's face translated as 'did you forget you met me as well?' "What did you do, back on Krypton?"

"I was foremost in my unit, second only to General Zod," Faora said. "Our duty was to defend Krypton. Our existence revolved around that fact."

_Defend Krypton from...?_ and had no idea how to ask that, or how to sleep if the answer was distressing.

Aware this was very likely a sore subject, even moreso than it had been with Clark, "And what will you do now?"

Ignoring the use of future tense, Faora replied "I defend you."

Taking a step back to look over her measurements, Martha nodded with approval, 

**~~**

"Counting craters?" Martha asked, coming outside to join Faora on the back porch.

"Craters?"

"Clark used to love counting how many craters there were on the Moon. By the time he was in high school, he could name them all."

"I was not counting craters," Faora said. "I was looking at Krypton."

_Oh._ "Where is it?" Martha asked, curious. Even when he had known where he came from, Clark had never said he knew which way it was.

"There," she said, pointing to a blur which looked not far from a nebula...at least not from Earth's position in the sky. "In four hundred years, its light will no longer reach the Earth."

_What do you say to that? 'I'm sorry' isn't strong enough, and 'That's not for a long time' seems impersonal, even with everything she's done._

**~~**  
 **Day Three:**

There was every possibility that what she was doing to the child right now, could be qualified as petty. But Martha didn't care - "You're doing fine, Faora," Martha said, standing beside her, providing a constant demonstration of how it was done.

Not looking away from her work, Faora asked her "This is how your son Kal learned his fine motor control?"

"Not when he was a baby or a toddler, no. But when his strength started kicking in, yes," Martha said, completely truthfully. "And if you break a dish, just set it down and move on to wiping the next one off."

**~~**

"Crops," Faora said in a voice that had rather more surprise in it than she tended to use.

"Corn, specifically," Martha said as they stood at the edge of the cornfield. "We have the run of it - literally. Clark always practiced his running in there - but if you reach a road or any other break in the field, stop and come back - that's the property line."

With a rare smile, Faora gave a nod - and was gone.

**~~**  
 **Day Four:**

Sub-Commander Faora-Ul had been through a great many things in her life. Frozen, paralyzed, set adrift, left riven, subsonic movement, set hurled and dropped and kicked, shot with all manner of projectiles. But today she learned something new.

"We're going to take a ride," Martha said to her.

"Ride?" Faora asked.

"In the car." _Thankfully our insurance company agreed that 'aliens acting Hulk-like' as they put it, qualify under those Acts Of God which are still payable. Otherwise we'd have to walk, and I don't think my legs are as durable as Faora's._

"More dishes?"

Martha smiles. "No, not for more dishes. No, I'm going to take you to see one of our cemeteries."

The word didn't seem to ring any bells for the girl.

"Where we bury the remains of our dead. I'm taking you to one that's for members of the military. My grandfather and uncle are there." _As is most of Jonathan's family. There won't be anyone up there visiting, not this time of day._ And wasn't sure when would be a good time to talk to either of them - Clark or Faora - about her _face mask or helmet or..._ she shook her head. "And before you ask, there's nobody there aside from a guard at this time of day; so you can keep your helmet on." _You sleep in it, you do everything but eat in it...and you haven't let me watch you eat yet._

There was a blur of light and movement, and in the next instant, Faora was standing next to the front door, waiting and standing at what seemed to be Kryptonian parade rest.

Martha covered her mouth so Faora wouldn't see the smile, but figured she probably heard it. "Let me get my keys -" and there was another blur, and then Faora was standing right in front of her - _I suppose personal space will be our next little chat_ \- and carefully, almost paranoidly, lightly placed the entire keychain on Martha's thumb. And then was at the door again a second later.

The walk from there to the door and then to the car was almost anticlimactic from there. But at the car, Faora spotted that the passenger seat beside the driver's seat had a box full of equipment and supplies in it, so she sat in the back seat instead. Martha shrugged and didn't say anything, and got the car moving.

On Krypton, travel was smooth and unremarkable, unless one was under attack. There was no middle ground in machines.

Sub-Commander Faora-Ul had been through a great many things in her life. Frozen, paralyzed, set adrift, left riven, subsonic movement, hurled and dropped and kicked, shot with all manner of projectiles. But today she learned something new:

"Don't worry about it," Martha told her, barely looking at the gloopy oatmealish _carsick_ all over the front windshield, instead turning around and handing the girl a towel. "I used to be that way too." _Right down to the projectile vomit._

**~~**  
 **Day Six:**

"Nonsense, you look nice," Martha said when Faora voiced an opinion on the tailored clothes she had put on before coming into the sitting room for Martha to see.

Fortunately the measurements worked even with her suit on underneath.

"Camouflage," Faora muttered to herself, which made Martha think she was talking herself into keeping it on, or at least with putting up with it.

So Martha nodded, agreeing with Faora. _Camouflage is very important. It was for Clark, and now it'll be for you too._ But then Martha thought, _If Clark wants her to wear glasses too, like he does now, I'll let him take her for that. I will not be placing a pane of glass next to a pair of lasers._

**~~**

"Your son can fly," Faora said, having put this off enough already.

Martha's answer was, "And he didn't learn it under my roof - or any other time when I was raising him. So I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait til he gets back, before you learn that."

"Then to hover?"

"When did he do this?" which was answer aplenty for Faora.

**~~**  
 **Day Seven:**

_I've put this off for far too long,_ Martha thought to herself ruefully, while ruing that the reason she could now ask something like this, was also the reason why she was afraid - _well, part of the reason._ "Faora?" Martha asks, and she looks at the Earthling with a glance at once dutiful and 'oh god what now?' that Martha imagines she herself wore plenty of times as a teenager. "Have a seat, please. There's something I need to ask you."

"If you are seeking knowledge regarding Kryptonian technology, I will not help you," Faora said as she sat down with caution enough to avoid breaking the chair next to Martha's.

"I wasn't going to ask about that."

"Then what?"

"Clark's mother."

"Lara-Van," Faora said. "What of her? You are aware she is dead, are you not?"

"Clark says you knew her," Martha said.

"I did. She was present at my summary judgement."

"I'm sorry."

Faora gave her that Kryptonian look which she didn't think had an Earth parallel.

"I wanted to know...what was she like? Lara Van. Was she nice?"

Faora blinked, and again, working to find an applicable word. "She was loyal. And as treasonous as I."

"Were you friends?" Martha asked.

"At times, we were. Yes."

"And other times, you didn't get along?"

"Only once. All other times, our paths did not intersect, and there was no conflict."

"Do you wish she had been one of the survivors?" and immediately wished she could retract the question.

But Faora didn't seem to mind that question. Chewing on it, she answered "She deserved a better grave than Krypton."


	3. Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faora continues to learn, as does Martha. And she gets to vent a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With her dinner outfit, I was thinking along the lines [of this](http://i2.listal.com/image/2012426/600full-antje-traue.jpg).

**ONE WEEK, TWO DAYS:**

Martha was playing fetch with the dog when Faora emerged from the basement of the shed, something cradled in both palms. "What did you find?" Martha asked, coming over, dog at her heels.

"I found this," Faora said, showing her while still looking at it with some intensity. "A shell."

"I was wondering where that old fossil went to," Martha said, and Faora handed her the fossil shell. "Jonathan gave me this years ago. Before we found Clark."

"It looks marine, not terrestrial."

Martha nodded.

"Thus the fossilization process," Faora inferred.

"Kansas used to be part of an ocean," Martha said. "Millions of years ago. I'll get Clark's dinosaur books out for you later."

Faora gave a nod. "Planets change," she said.

"They do," Martha said. "Anyway, Jonathan and I had just gotten married, but we couldn't afford a trip anywhere out of state. So we camped out along where the ocean used to wash up along that ancient beach, and we pretended we were prehistoric beachcombers."

"A dinosaur?"

Resolutely not smiling, Martha said "A beachcomber is a person who walks along a shoreline - of a lake, an ocean, an estuary - and picks up pretty shells or anything else washed-up that catches their eye."

"And keeps them," Faora said, looking at the fossil shell.

"And keeps them."

"And all men do this?"

"Anyone can, Faora."

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
 **ONE WEEK FOUR DAYS:**

Faora's eyes remained closed as she sat perfectly still.

"You're floating, but not drifting," Martha said to her. _Never been swimming before... definately something we'll have to address - once you can go without your mask._ "I'm on solid ground. You can hear my voice, so move towards it. Slowly, there's no hurry, no rush." _A different visualization metaphor, and you're doing well. I was a little surprised you wanted to learn this method, given all the focusing strategies you learned in the army, but still, no harm in one more._ "Ignore everything else, all the lights and noises and whatever else there is - focus on my voice, just my voice."

That was working until a reporter on tv said "World Engine," to which Faora opened her eyes.

 _Should have turned that off beforehand. Guess I figured we were doing well enough there could be background noise,_ Martha thought. _Maybe we should have left it on The Dog Whisperer._

The onscreen reporter, Lois Lane, was saying that "After a week of being inaccessible from any conceivable access point -" and stopped as the people around her started to exclaim and point to the World Engine. Lois looked behind her, her eyes wide with _everything else, and it can do_ that _too?_ Looking back to the camera, "It would appear that the World Engine is...the only word is dissolving. No doubt clean-up crews will be on-hand shortly, but for now..." and left it at that, feeling that the image would describe itself better than words could.

"Will there be a mess?" Martha asked.

"No," Faora said.

"Anything for beachcombers?"

"On habitable worlds, damaged structures leave no material remains larger than the subatomic. Were Earth a lifeless globe, the World Engine would have continued to sit there in readiness, waiting." _As it had done before we picked it up for use._

**~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
 **TWO WEEKS, TWO DAYS:**

As she washed her dinner plate, Martha wondered how much longer Faora was going to sleep. _This was her first full day of going without her mask...and she spent the whole day asleep. At least she looked like she was sleeping; training exercises or something like that?_

 _Adapting?_ And that reminded her of how, when Clark was little, every so often he would do something unexpected, something to remind them that he wasn't the human he appeared to be; _but we never loved him one iota less, no matter what happened._

**~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
 **TWO WEEKS, FOUR DAYS:**

To celebrate - congratulate - her on the accomplishment of being maskless now, Martha had brought Faora to go fossil-hunting with her. Walking along the open spaces, eyes open for fossils and snakes and anything else to watch out for. 

Martha hung back a little, watching the younger woman sweep her head from side to side with varying degrees of speed, as though scanning the ground intently. And that it was on one of those side-to-side sweeping motions that she turned her head far enough for Martha to see little red embers in those eyes. "Faora?" Martha asked. _No lasers...but definately something._

The red dimmed until her eyes looked perfectly human, and Faora said - once Martha was alongside her - "I was searching for fossils."

"Your eyes..."

Patiently, Faora said, "Optical like and unlike. Your eyes are like those of Kryptonians' eyes, able to passively take in light and images. You lack our ability to emit your own light to determine the shape and speed of objects."

_Probably a useful trait on a world where there's more stuff kicked up by all manner of things. And it certainly explains where Clark's red eyes come from._

And abruptly, Faora paused in place, took in a deep breath, and _zoomed_ away, leaving a small dustclod - smaller than a dustcloud - from the abrupt change in speed.

"Hmm," Martha said.

Thirty seconds later, Faora returned just as quickly, albeit with dog hairs on her sleeves. And looking more at ease and relaxed than she'd been for a week - _Moreso than her usual default expression, anyway; which I'd thought meant everything was fine. Different levels of fine? Or just letting off steam, even if she didn't know it was getting bottled up?_ "Faora?" Martha asked.

"Yes?"

"Did something happen?"

Anyone else would've been looking very proud of herself; Faora simply looked like herself. "I neutralized a threat."

 _Oh God._ "What was the threat?"

"An approaching pack of dogs was growling at us."

Martha couldn't bring herself to admonish Faora for doing that - not with Martha knowing what feral and half-feral dogs could do to children and adults alike. "Could you let me know, next time?"

If Faora thought that was a compromise, she gave no sign of it. "Yes."

**~~~**

As she drove them back to the house several hours later, with Faora still not showing the slightest hint of being exhausted or anything else, Martha thought back to Faora's first week under her roof...'And what will you do now?' she had asked the once-soldier of Krypton; to which Faora had replied 'I defend you.' _That's more than a little more than 'how the mighty have fallen.' That's an entire way of life, gone. And for all that I've done my best to keep her occupied with showing her how to fit in - or at least to camouflage here on Earth - that's a large gap left._

Martha sighed. _I need to find you something that's a more appropriate outlet than putting down feral animals; but while I'm doing that..._ "I just want you to give me your word that you won't kill housepets," Martha said. "I know what you're going to say - and that's why I'm going to give you some guidelines to help tell a housepet from something that's not."

"Let us begin," Faora said, echoing a statement from the other week.

_We'll start with leashes and fences, and go from there to situations that might require a judgement call._

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
 **THREE WEEKS:**

When Clark comes home, he stops right in the doorway, not feeling the door slap against him.

There, in the archway, facing him, are his mother Martha Kent and the Subcommander Faora-Ul, looking like best friends happy to see an old friend. _Or mom does. Faora could almost be waiting for luggage, which, granted, some people enjoy waiting for._

"Welcome home," Martha says.

"Kal-El," Faora says.

Clark blinks, his eyes seeing the woman before him in a broad striped shirt and jeans, while his mind superimposes that image with the terribly familiar voice whose owner had cut a figure at once similar and starkly different. "Subcommander."

A smile slides across her face for a few seconds, replaced by a neutral expression.

"What's going on? I got a call saying -"

"I invited you home for dinner, Clark," Martha says. "You haven't so much as phoned home for three weeks, so I left a message at your office."

Faora looks at Martha who gives her a small smile and a nod. "You can go get changed now," and that final vowel hasn't fully left her mouth before there's a Faora-shaped blur speeding upstairs.

When Faora comes back downstairs, she takes a seat at the dinner table with them, having put on her suit under the jeans and striped shirt. _Far better,_ she feels.

"What's going on, mom?" Clark asks, having lived with the woman long enough to know when she was trying to avoid dropping hints about something - even something as innocuous as a birthday present. _And if the Subcommander's hearing is as acute as mine is, there's nowhere we can ask her to go and wait while I talk with my mom about this._

"I was thinking," Martha says, "it may be time for Faora to help you with your job."

Faora said nothing, just kept her ears open and ate silently.

Clark opened his mouth -

"Not the reporting, no," Martha said.

Clark closed his mouth, his objection rendered moot. Then, "You want her to patrol the Earth with me?" Clark asked.

"She needs an outlet, Clark, and I figure this would be similar enough to her old job."

_Her old job nearly killed you._

"Besides, as I see it, the options are that or demolition, and there aren't enough of those kind of buildings in Kansas," Martha said.

Clark sighs. "I need to consider this, please."

Martha nods. "On a related note, I sort of promised Faora that you would teach her to fly."

"Fly?"

"Or at least to hover."

He closed his eyes and felt the urge - an entirely learned behavior - to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'll see what I can do before I head back to work; I might start the lessons - and you don't practice without me there," he told Faora.

"I hear," Faora replied.

**~~~**  
Late that evening, Clark found her sitting on the porch, her neck angled up, her eyes peering out at the Moon and constellations. From where he stood, he couldn't tell if she had traded in that striped shirt for a sweater, or if she was wearing both over her suit; he could do a subsurface scan, but something told him that she'd notice that.

"Counting craters?" Clark asked her.

"No. I am watching Krypton's sunlight," Faora said.

"There's a question that's been bugging me for the past week," _at least_ , "so I'm going to put it to you." _And I want to know the answer to this_ before _I teach you to do anything, or I try to figure out the next step if there is any, of what's going to happen to you._

She said nothing, just waited.

"Was there ever any way you would have fought against Zod?" Clark asks her.

"You speak of the interval when the three of us were all on and above the Earth," Faora says.

Clark nods.

"Our purposes were the same. To defend Krypton."

"I've been told that you overthrew the leaders of Krypton."

"Jor-El," she says, and it is not a question. "You were admiring the birdhouse," Faora says, her eyes looking out across the twilit yard and measuring the distance between her and the structure.

 _Yeah, my mom mentioned you and she made it from scratch last week._ "It's good quality work," Clark says.

"Yes. You wish to speak of hypotheticals; very well - picture that the beam holding the birdhouse in place. And now picture that the beam is rotted. If you wish to place a structurally-sound beam to support the birdhouse, you must first remove the beam already there."

 _I'd rather not discuss the ethics of treason or regime change, please._ "Sorry, I didn't mean my comment about the overthrow as anything more than a rebuttal."

"Then continue," she says.

"Hypothetically, was there anything I could have said, that might have convinced you to work with me against Zod?" Clark asked.

"No more than there was something Zod might have said, which could have swayed your father to work with us."

 _Weirdest generation gap in history._ "So you would have been content to let the Earth be doomed?"

" _You_ summoned _us_ , Kal-El."

"Not deliberately."

Faora shot a mild look at him. "Ignorance is no more an excuse to a Kryptonian, than it is to your mother," and she got up and walked away.

As she walked, Clark could hear her whispering about flying to an island.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark sees the Kryptonian mind.
> 
> (i thought I'd posted this chapter already, but AO3 says I didn't; apologies for the delay)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been part of Chapter 3, but a few lines were giving me trouble. sorry.
> 
> And this is _Faora's_ reasoning, nobody else's.

**ONE DAY LATER:**  
Sol, the sun around which Earth orbits, was rising on the horizon when Faora came to Clark where he stood behind the barn. "You called my name," she says.

"I did," Clark says. "I have a few more questions, and you're going to answer them. No more hiding behind a need to learn the references or idioms, no danger of being overheard. I want crisp, clear, honest answers."

"I have never lied."

"Have you said anything that was neither a lie nor the whole truth?"

"Yes. Many of them in this state and this district," Faora said. "The full truth would have frightened your mother."

"Since when did you care?" curious about the answer. _Have you reformed, Faora?_

"You ensured that my life depends upon hers. I am no fool to authorize my own end."

"Go on," Clark said.

Faora **_ran_** , and Clark gave chase, pursuing her all the way to the edge of the train yards where they had fought not even a few months ago. Faora stopped and stood, and so did Clark. "Sure hope there was a reason for that."

"Your mother cannot walk this far, and would not drive to here," Faora said. "You wish to know my motives, and you seek all to be shorn of the excess." That predatory smile she had worn in the fights; "Very well, then I shall reduce my words to their stark underlying forms, to the manner of speech our people have used since before our society entered the Stasis your parents defied by birthing you."

"Okay," Clark said, not sure what else he could reply to _that_.

"First, yourself, Kal-El. You achieved victory over myself. More, you achieved victory over General Zod, my commanding officer. My rights forfeit, you took command of me and gave me orders you wished me to complete." She gives him a look. "Or did you state those orders with a desire I would fail and thereby 'earn' a death you had chosen to not fulfill in the ruins of Metropolis?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't fail," Clark said. "But I honestly didn't think you'd do so well and as fast as you have."

"Slow learners were swiftly weeded out by natural selection on Krypton. By the time our species achieved intelligence, we were incapable of mental sloth; though some adults attempted it," thinking of the ruling caste who had sent her and her comrades into the Phantom Zone.

_Nice, referencing nature vs nurture. Only we both got nurtured - me here on Earth by my foster mom Martha Kent, and you on Krypton by...I have no idea. How much of either of our language and word-related mindsets are a result of that difference in nurturing? Yeah, like anyone anywhere's ever solved that one._

"Second, your fostering mother. You seek to understand why I am civil toward her and tolerant of overtures she makes in her attempt to make myself a foster daughter of her."

"A daughter?" Clark repeated.

"She dresses me as a parent does a child," _and thinks I can be kept apart from my suit for any length of time. But when appeasement is a tactic rendered viable by circumstances..._ "You, Kal-El, asked her to teach me as she had done unto you. What did you think your mother was doing?"

"Making a friend. And you have to admit you're a pretty good one, from what I've heard." But it didn't escape his notice that her selection of words had changed. _Is this what a more literal translation of Kryptonian would be?_ he wondered.

"Were I to behave with even low-level hostility or aggression for any length of time towards her," Faora said, "that would render her less inclined to assist in my camouflage efforts, as well as be reported to you; and you have the capability to hunt me to ground and _perhaps_ kill me."

Clark remembered a high school trip to a farm once, where the farmer had advocated a painless way to get the beef - the farmer had said 'if you're going to kill the cow, you don't scare her to death first. And if you're not going to kill her, you definately don't scare the cow.' _Same thing here._ "So you become her friend," Clark repeated.

"I have become a student who overlooks a superior's self-abasement. I listen as she speaks of her youth, of her husband, and your childhood; I answer her questions regarding your Kryptonian parents. This is what a friend does?"

"Among other things."

"Then I need to learn," Faora says.

"To complete your camouflage?" Clark asks.

"If it is your wish that I be silent and unseen, moving among the people of Earth, Kal-El, then it is to both our advantages that I learn the intricacies of _friendship_."

Clark smiles.

"In your position of superiority, you see something in my words which gives you amusement. I would have you tell me what that is."

"Certainly," Clark says. _Was that what my father - what Jor-El - meant when he wanted me to be a bridge between the two peoples ... that he wanted me to understand how each side thinks? I guess I underestimated how much Zod couched things in terms I was familiar with, even if, at their heart, he and the Jor-El hologram weren't using words entirely unlike what Faora's saying, not at their heart._ "I was going to ask, just now, if that was your master plan - give me the ultimatum wherein I have to either help you camouflage with friendship, or I have to teach you to hover and fly like I can."

"While that was not my plan, it does contain the hallmarks of elegance in strategy," Faora said.

"And is that your new strategy, then?"

"It is not. My strategy has been to adapt until I possess parity or superiority over you, Kal-El," she said.

"And how's that going for you?"

"You can fly. I, however, possess a capability you have never yoked for its potential."

"Yoked?" Clark asked.

"When you do not have it caged away, you force it to trample all in its path," Faora said, her pupils turning red.

Clark tensed, ready to run if the red spread to the rest of her eyes - and found that it wasn't just his legs that were tensing... _it's every single muscle in my body._ "What is that?"

"Kryptonian," Faora said as her pupils lost the red.

Clark relaxed. _Instinct? Anti-predator response? What?_ "So, if I show you how to fly, you'll show me how you did that?" Clark asked her.

"An equitable arrangement."

"And then what? You'll fly off, and... what?"

"That depends upon you, Kal-El," Faora said.

"How so?" Clark asked.

"I have no desire to take sides in the quarrels among the people of this world. Thus I have no inclination to interfere. That _is_ your concern, is it not? That I would set myself up as a ruler of humanity?"

"There was that worry, yeah. So you'll fly from here to there and over to elsewhere, and live a nice quiet life?" Clark asked.

"I have no reason to do otherwise," Faora said. "And I am still disinclined to lie."

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
 **FOUR MONTHS LATER:**  
 **The Daily Planet:**

The delivery of mail was less than it could have been, in most opinions.

Lois got a letter from her parents, an anonymously-donated pair of opera tickets, and a message granting her the interview she had requested months ago with one of the bigwigs of society's bigwigs.

Jenny got a letter that could turn out to inform her she could win $10,000 instantly.

And Clark got a postcard with a large smudge of ink where most people write a brief message. Again.

While Jenny was answering the phone, Lois turned to Clark and prompted him "So, spill."

"Spill what?" Clark asked.

"Who is your mystery pen pal who sends you all these postcards?"

"Just a friend. Did you get the phone number for that guy we were supposed to be doing the follow-up on this afternoon? I thought I jotted it down, but I didn't get the whole thing."

Lois grinned, knowing what he did there. "You do realize I'll get it out of you, don't you?"

Clark shrugged, but thought _Really, of all the places she could have sent a postcard from, Faora picks Gotham?_


End file.
